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Required Summer Reading:

external image 20298896.JPGGómez de Avellaneda, Gertrudis. Sab and Autobiography. Ed. Nina M. Scott. Trans. Nina M. Scott. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993. ISBN: 0-292-72463-2.


Please read Sab before the first day of classes. The novel goes from page 26-147. Consult the introduction, autobiography and notes as needed. I would recommend reading the novel before reading the introduction. Form your own opinions about the work before delving into Professor Scott's lucid observations. Please click here to see some of the discussion questions that we will use when we talk about this novel in class.

This text is listed through MBS like any other book that you will need for your GFA classes. You can also click on the image above in order to compare the prices offered through amazon.com.


Recommended Summer Listening:
I wouldn't dare presume that you will be looking for ways to occupy your time this summer. Nor would I want to suggest that you would want to do anything more than the required summer study. Nonetheless, in the unlikely event that you will be spending any time with your i-pod on this summer, you may want to check out the following lectures. The first three are from a European History course given at Berkeley, and while they do not directly explain the historical context of 19th-century Cuba (the setting of Avellaneda's Sab), they do provide the intellectual contexts in which Sab and indeed all of 19th-century Latin America literature were spawned. Don't forget that Latin America existed as a series of Spanish colonies for three centuries before achieving political independence. Also, throughout the 1800's their cultural production in many ways mirrored that of the French while their economic development was largely reliant upon the British. In short, to say that the general principles of European intellectual history are important to the understanding Latin American Literature would be an understatement. On a side note, you will find that Professor Anderson is not only extremely knowledgeable but also delivers a series of rather entertaining lectures. Download these lectures free from I-tunes by clicking on the titles below.

The fourth lecture is from a course given to English majors at the University of Warwick. "Modes of Reading" is an introductory course in Literary Theory in which Professor Docherty's intellegence and sense of humor make this often dense and abstruse topic remarkably comprehensible. The link below will take you to a lecture on Feminist reading, a topic that you will find both interesting and, perhaps, helpful to you as you read and think about Sab.


UC_Berkely.pngAnderson, Margaret Lavinia. «History 5: The 18th Century and the Enlightenment.» Spring of 2008. UC Berkely Webcasts. May 4, 2008 .


Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. «History 5: Romanticism and the Search for Wholeness.» Spring de 2008. UC Berkely Webcasts. May 4, 2008 .


Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. «History 5: What Did Women Want? Women and Society in the 19th Century.» Spring de 2008. UC Berkely Webcasts. May 4, 2008 .

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Docherty, Thomas. «Modes of Reading: Feminisms. » Spring de 2009. University of Warwick. August, 14 2009 .






Other Course Books:

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García Márquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Trad. Gregory Rabassa. 3. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006. ISBN: 978-0-06-088328-7


García Márquez‘s epic 1967 novel follows the history of the Buendía family from the foundation of the fictional village of Macondo to its apocalyptic finish. This masterpeice is a cornerstone of contemporary Latin American literature and indeed of contemporary world literature. With One Hundred Years of Solitude García Márquez catapulted himself to global fame and along with his colleagues of the Latin American "Boom" turn the attention of readers around the world to Latin American literature, and to the writings of the developing post-colonial world as a whole. The reading of this work will occupy a good four or five weeks of the course.

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Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Stephen Tapscott. Trad. Various. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006. ISBN: 978-0-292-78140-5


Because of the difficulty of conducting close analysis of translated poetry, most of our class discussion will be dominated by narrative writings. Nonetheless, this comprehensive collection will allow us sample the poetic manifestations of the various aesthetic movements that will be covered in the course. Of particular importance will be the Modernistas of the turn of the century and the avantgarde poets of the early 1920´s In addition, this volume will allow students to explore a wide array of possibilities for independent projects and presentations.


Both of these texts are listed through MBS like any other book that you will need for your GFA classes. You can also click on the images above in order to compare the prices offered through amazon.com.